


Friends on the Other Side

by KDblack



Category: MORFOSI｜莫法西
Genre: Human/Monster Romance, Immortal Jon, M/M, Metamorphosis, Post-Game, Timothy is still in there... for now, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27477373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: Lord Morfosi settles into his new vessel. Timothy holds a grudge. Jon is in love.
Relationships: Jon/Timothy | Lord Morfosi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Friends on the Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> Raise your hand if you feel personally victimized by [Dino999z](https://twitter.com/dino999z) and [UniDot Studio](https://twitter.com/unidotstudio).

A week after the ritual finally succeeds and his lord returns to this earth, Jon pauses in the middle of cleaning and asks, “Are you upset with me, my lord?”

Lord Morfosi blinks slowly, catlike. And then, without changing his expression, he reaches out and knocks over the tub of nails at Jon's feet. “Whatever would give you that impression?”

“I don't know,” Jon says, watching shards of silver metal roll into the seemingly-bottomless hole he's trying to board over. “Just a hunch.”

“Don't fret,” Lord Morfosi says. He sounds amused, but then, he always does. No matter which body he's wearing, his tone somehow contrives to be exactly the same. “It's only growing pains. This vessel is somewhat opinionated.”

Jon sighs, relieved, and gathers up the remaining nails. “Let me know if there's any way I can help, my lord.”

He absolutely means the words, but that doesn't stop him from regretting them a split-second later when Lord Morfosi kicks him into the pit. Falling is a nightmare, as usual. Jon loathes the sick floating sensation in his gut. It stirs up bad memories from before he stumbled into these woods, back when the world was more aware of witchcraft and crueler for it. The impact far below is positively pleasant in comparison.

“Oh dear.” Lord Morfosi's voice filters down from above. For a moment, the perpetual amusement is shaken, and he sounds exactly like Timothy did when he worried. “Are you intact, Jon?”

Jon lets out a wet groan and tries to sit up. It doesn't quite work, so he slumps back down. “No.”

“Stay put. I'll set something to come get you.”

Something, in this case, is one of the enormous fleshy orbs that are basically nothing but mouth and stomach, but beggars can't be choosers. And having come before Lord Morfosi with nothing but the clothes on his back and his battered, useless body, Jon is most definitely a beggar. So he puts up with the awful smell and the saliva getting into his wounds in exchange for it bringing him back up. And he thanks it, because these creatures might be fashioned from Lord Morfosi's leftovers, but they all have a shard of his lord's power contained with them. That power ensures they last after their creator departs this world.

It must be nice, having a piece of Lord Morfosi inside you. Jon wouldn't know. His body rejects death in all forms, including the metaphorical. He cannot be reborn as Lord Morfosi's creation any more than he can become Lord Morfosi's new vessel. The most he can do is serve the god who gave him sanctuary, and so he does. When he can, anyway. 

Lord Morfosi is waiting when they resurface. The sly smile he's wearing looks terribly out of place on Timothy's honest face. “My, that's a nasty break.”

Jon doesn't know if Lord Morfosi is talking about Jon's legs, his arm, his back. They all ache horribly and won't move right. But it doesn't really matter. “Give it a minute,” Jon wheezes. “I'll be fine.”

It's true, but Lord Morfosi hovers regardless, conjuring a first aid kit out of thin air. There's precious little worry on his new face – just the smile of a pet owner watching his dog perform a trick. He talks about idle things as blood flows backward, limbs snap back into place, and shattered bones fuse together. Inside of five minutes, Jon can sit up again and return to his work. There's a lot left to fix in this old, rotting house, after all. Lord Morfosi stays, watching through faded blue eyes, but he keeps to the other side of the room in case Timothy acts up again. This is the downside of relying on reincarnation to give you eternity.

Immortality without power. Power without immortality.

If you put it like that, it makes sense that they would fall in together.

* * *

Time passes. The mansion starts coming back together, especially once Lord Morfosi has gathered enough of his power into his new body to begin making architectural overhauls. Problem is, Timothy still hasn't settled yet, so sometimes those architectural overhauls happen without warning. Jon is getting very tired of suddenly having the floor drop out from under him or being squished between walls. Every time he drags himself back to Lord Morfosi in pieces, Jon sees it – a flicker of hurt and grim satisfaction in those washed-out eyes.

“How long is this going to keep happening?” he whines after a particularly nasty fall. This is getting out of hand. He still doesn't know where his leg is.

“Not much longer,” Lord Morfosi promises. If Jon was still the age he looks, he'd take that at face value. But he's spent centuries at his lord's side, and his lord is troubled. Not greatly so, but enough.

“Can I speak with him?”

Lord Morfosi smiles thinly. “You are.”

“Of course,” Jon agrees, but he wonders. How much of Timothy is left? Is he scattered into a thousand pieces of hate and sadness, or is he the new heart Lord Morfosi has formed around?

It's difficult to say. All Jon can do is wait for his hypothesis to be confirmed.

Three months to the day after Jon lured Timothy into Morfosi, he wakes up in the night to find someone standing over him, emitting a soft but terrible light. 

“My lord?” he mumbles, rolling toward the glow. As soon as the words are out, he knows they're wrong. It might be Lord Morfosi's body which looms above him, dead white flesh luminous in the dark, but isn't Lord Morfosi looking down through pitch-black eyes. “Timothy?”

Timothy cocks the head that once belonged to him at an awful angle. When he speaks, it's flat and breathy – the rattling tone of the dead. “Why can't I kill you?”

“Were you trying to kill me?” The thought makes Jon chuckle. “It's been a while since anyone put their mind to it. Usually, they get bored after a while.”

“Why?” Timothy repeats, cold and anything but empty. Under the chill of the grave, Jon can make out two things: hurt, and... betrayal?

“Injury doesn't stick to me,” Jon says. “Death has no hold on me. Even time can't affect me any longer.” He laughs again, bitterly. “It's not a curse or anything. I was just unlucky enough to be born this way. If I'd been killed as a child, then maybe it would've stuck, but as it is... here we are.”

Darkness oozes slowly from the corner of Timothy's eyes. “You serve... him... because he lives forever, too.”

Did Timothy stumble over his words for a moment? Did he almost say 'me' instead of 'him?' “I serve him because he always comes back to me.” 

In different faces and in different countries, but always, Lord Morfosi returns. And when he doesn't... well, isn't it Jon's duty as his servant to go and find him?

Timothy closes his eyes. Another gush of slick black floods down his cheeks like tears. “So it was a lie.”

There's no need to say what. They both know. Between them lies a sad story – the tale of a young man, quiet, reserved, always fearing something he could never quite put into words, who was lured into the woods by a gentle hand and a kind smile. A story that has been told so many times before. The victim usually doesn't a chance at revenge, though. Assuming, Jon reflects, that it's actually revenge Timothy wants.

“I did like you,” he admits freely. “But I could never put you above my lord. As long as the shadow of Lord Morfosi remained in this world, you didn't have a chance.”

“And now?” Timothy asks. The chill is receding, replaced with numbness. The things that lie beneath the ice are almost visible.

Jon beams up at him. “Of course I love you! You're part of Lord Morfosi! And I did something terrible to you, so it's only fair if you never forgive me. You can spend the rest of this life trying to kill me and I won't hold it against you.”

Timothy opens his mouth, then closes it, heedless of the slick black trickling down toward his chin. His eyes are dark from corner to corner, but there's a helpless quirk to his mouth that's terribly familiar. Worrying even now? How cute. “I don't understand you.”

“That's fine. Understanding and love have nothing to do with each other.”

There's a hideous squelch as Timothy turns away. He probably can't hold himself together that long. Soon this moment of clarity will disappear and he'll return to being the eternal Lord Morfosi. But right now, despite his corpse-like appearance and the slow drip of foul magic from every orifice, he's all Timothy. “Don't go making assumptions about my feelings, idiot.”

“I'm not making assumptions!” Jon calls after the retreating shape. And he isn't. 

In Jon's eyes, it's very simple. Timothy wouldn't have agreed to come on this trip if he hadn't cared about Jon. He definitely wouldn't have plunged deeper and deeper into the mansion after the echo of Jon's scream. Shy, delicate Timothy fought his way through a nightmare to try and save Jon, sacrificing his very humanity in the process, and that means something, even if Timothy is no longer just Timothy.

A century or two ago, Lord Morfosi explained the body-snatching to Jon like this: his reincarnations do not disappear. They are simply reabsorbed into the whole. Timothy's memories, Timothy's wishes – they continue to exist within Lord Morfosi's many-faceted being, just like the remains of every other vessel. Some vessels are just stronger than others. Jon suspects that Timothy will be the strongest yet. 

In the morning, Lord Morfosi is wearing one of Timothy's worried scowls, but he stands closer to Jon than he has in weeks. One of his eyes keeps dripping blood when he isn't paying attention. Jon mops the stains up without complaint.

Timothy and Lord Morfosi are the same now. If Timothy still loves Jon enough to feel betrayed by him, then surely Lord Morfosi loves him as well.


End file.
